We’ve built immersive experiences for 47 years.
Sizzle Studios® is the operating system for intelligence in the physical world — EdgeBox® for local sensing and venue intelligence, Synth Humans® for cloud-powered on-camera conversation, and Experience Pass® for phone-side commerce and loyalty. Sizzle is the evolution of 47 years of experiential intelligence at The Illusion Factory, founded in 1979 and trusted by Disney, Warner Bros, Fox, NBC, CBS, HBO, Paramount, Universal, Nintendo, Adidas, McDonald’s, and the rest of the brands that built modern consumer media.
Sizzle transforms attention into participation, loyalty, and measurable action.
We built Sizzle because the next great brand experience will not live on a screen.
For 47 years, The Illusion Factory has helped studios, networks, brands, and live events create the moments people remember. We did not build ordinary campaigns. We built experiences designed to stop people, move them, involve them, and make them care.
But the world changed.
Screens became saturated. Apps became disposable. QR codes became friction. Chatbots became a punchline. And cloud-based digital humans proved that a face on a screen does not matter if the system behind it is slow, generic, expensive, and fragile.
Sizzle was built for what comes next.
We combine Edge AI, Synth Humans®, and Experience Pass® into one platform designed for real-world environments where attention, timing, and trust matter. Venues. Retail floors. Hotels. Clinics. Stadiums. Public spaces. Any place where a brand has one chance to turn a moment into a relationship.
Sizzle is not another chatbot, loyalty app, or digital signage layer. It is the operating system for interactive physical experiences — built from 47 years of experiential intelligence and engineered for the partners who need measurable engagement now.
If your business depends on what happens in the room, on the floor, at the counter, in the seat, or at the moment of decision, Sizzle was built for you.
— Brian Weiner, Founder & CEO, Sizzle Studios®
One company. Three pillars.
Sizzle is one platform expressed as three products. EdgeBox® runs local — the sensing, privacy, and venue intelligence layer. Synth Humans® run in the cloud — on-camera conversation in 70+ languages. Experience Pass® runs on the phone — commerce and loyalty for any interaction.
The operating system for intelligence at the edge.
On-device inference. Sub-50ms response. Privacy by architecture. The compute layer for environments where decisions can’t wait for the cloud — retail, healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing, transit, smart cities, and the public spaces where attention happens.
Explore Edge AI →Conversational AI you can look in the eye.
311+ engineered brains, 200+ cast faces, 250+ on-camera personas already live and speaking across 40+ verticals, fluent in 70+ languages. Designed personality, governed behavior, sustained eye contact. The conversational AI that ended the chatbot era, deployed wherever brands need a face that can hold a conversation.
Explore Synth Humans →Where engagement becomes attribution.
The commerce and loyalty layer that turns an on-screen moment into an attributed customer relationship. A QR on the screen, a pass on the phone, no app download. Used at the United Nations, on the PGA Tour, and across the Sizzle deployment footprint.
Explore Experience Pass →The team that built the campaigns that taught people to look.
Founded in 1979 in Calabasas, California, The Illusion Factory has spent 47 years building experiential and interactive work for the brands that define consumer media.
Disney. Warner Bros. Fox. NBC. CBS. HBO. Paramount. Universal. Nintendo. Adidas. McDonald’s. The studios, networks, brands, and properties on this roster have trusted The Illusion Factory with their most ambitious launches, campaigns, and interactive environments for decades.
Sizzle is what happens when 47 years of experiential intelligence meets the architecture that finally makes the moment real-time.
That history isn’t a footnote on the Sizzle page. It’s the reason Sizzle exists. Edge AI for public spaces, conversational AI with a face, attributable engagement at the venue level — these are the answers to problems The Illusion Factory has been close to since the beginning. Sizzle is the platform that lets us solve them at scale.
The team behind Sizzle.
Founders, engineers, and operators. Distributed across North America and MENA. Every leadership profile here is hands-on in the build.
Brian Weiner
Founded The Illusion Factory in 1979. Built Sizzle to bring 47 years of experiential intelligence to the edge. Based in Calabasas.
Christopher Weiner
Leads applied machine learning and Synth Human® behavior modeling across the Sizzle platform.
Gary Brook
Architects the Edge AI operating system behind EdgeBox® — the on-device sensing, privacy, and real-time response layer at the venue.
Derek McCollum
Leads the commerce and loyalty platform that turns Sizzle interactions into attributed revenue for partners.
James Magee
Leads Sizzle’s expansion across the Middle East and North Africa, including the Riyadh Boulevard activations and partner ecosystem in the region.
Emmett Dunlap
Leads Sizzle’s Canadian deployments, partner ecosystem, and market development across the country.
The people helping steer.
What Sizzle is for. And what it isn’t.
Real-world intelligence doesn’t fail harmlessly. We design for the side of the system the buyer has to defend.
Trust First.
We engineer systems that respect privacy by architecture, defer to humans when escalation is appropriate, and treat silence as a valid outcome. The platform doesn’t talk for the sake of talking.
Contextual Intelligence.
Behavior is driven by environment, audience, and purpose — not by default engagement metrics. The system reads the room before it speaks. The right answer is often nothing.
Responsibility at Scale.
What works in one location has to work in a hundred. We design for safety, predictability, and accountability across the deployment footprint. Auditable behavior boundaries before launch, every time.
Partner Centered.
We build with partners, not for them. Sizzle integrates into the infrastructure the partner already operates — cameras, screens, kiosks, networked devices — without unnecessary reinvention. No rip-and-replace as the deployment model.
Three deployments. Three categories.
A selection of Sizzle activations across publishing, brand sponsorship, and global institutional events.
Scan magazine ads with the Sizzle app to unlock interactive content, video reveals, and contest entries directly from print.
Augmented-reality Pepsi bottles. Scan to unlock prize moments, on-field experiences, and live game-day engagement.
Synth Human®-hosted multilingual concierge for delegations from 108 attending nations. The first AI host at a UN environmental summit.
265 of the top creative and technical awards. Counting.
Cannes Lions. Webbys. Telly. The W3 Awards. The Davey Awards. The Communicator Awards. The Effie. AICP. Promax. The Hollywood Reporter. The Drum. AdWeek. The list keeps growing.
Awards aren’t the proof. The work is the proof. The awards are how the industry tells the rest of the industry that the work landed.
The questions we hear most.
What is Sizzle?
Sizzle is the operating system for intelligence in the physical world. Three products work together — EdgeBox® brings local sensing and venue intelligence on-site, Synth Humans® bring cloud-powered on-camera conversation through an internet uplink, and Experience Pass® brings commerce and loyalty to the customer’s phone.
Who founded Sizzle?
Sizzle was founded by Brian Weiner, who founded The Illusion Factory in 1979. Sizzle is the evolution of 47 years of experiential intelligence work for brands including Disney, Warner Bros, Fox, NBC, CBS, HBO, Paramount, Universal, Nintendo, Adidas, McDonald’s, and more.
How is Sizzle different from traditional AI or SaaS platforms?
Sizzle is architecture-aware — local where local wins, cloud where cloud wins. EdgeBox® handles sensing, privacy filtering, and venue analytics on-device for sub-50ms response. Synth Humans® run in the cloud where conversational depth lives. Experience Pass® runs on the customer’s phone. Privacy is enforced by architecture at every layer.
Is Sizzle a software product or a platform?
Sizzle is a platform. It supports multiple expressions — Edge AI Infrastructure, Synth Humans®, Experience Pass®, and environment-specific intelligence — without requiring separate systems for each use case.
What does Edge AI mean in Sizzle’s context?
Edge AI means intelligence runs locally on-site, near the sensors and interactions, rather than in the cloud. Sub-50ms response. Privacy by architecture. Reliable inside connectivity-constrained environments like airports, elevators, stadium concourses, drive-thrus, and remote field operations.
What data does Sizzle use to make decisions?
Sizzle works with anonymized signals such as presence, motion, gesture, dwell time, interaction state, and environment context. It does not require personal data to function. Raw video and audio never leave the device.
Do clients need to install new sensors or hardware?
Often no. Sizzle is designed to operate on top of existing infrastructure — cameras, screens, kiosks, microphones, and IoT systems the venue already has. Where needed, Sizzle pairs with the purpose-built EdgeBox® appliance.
What are Synth Humans®?
Synth Humans® are on-camera, conversational AI personas that deliver Sizzle’s intelligence with a face. 311+ engineered brains, 200+ cast faces, 250+ live and speaking across 40+ verticals, fluent in 70+ languages, governed by audited behavior boundaries the partner approves before deployment.
Where is Sizzle deployed today?
Sizzle is deployed across retail, hospitality, healthcare, transit, theme parks, sports venues, smart cities, financial services, and education. Notable deployments include United Nations COP 16, Pepsi/New England Patriots, and Las Vegas Weekly.
How can I work with Sizzle?
Sizzle works with partners through a B2B2C model. The partner owns the physical install, content scope, and consumer relationship. Sizzle delivers the platform, the modules, and the architectural guarantees. To discuss a deployment, schedule a conversation with Brian.
Let’s talk about your environment.
Sizzle deployments start with a conversation about your venue, your vertical, and the screens, sensors, and people already in motion. Bring the questions. We bring 47 years of answers.